International Intervention in Civil Conflict

1
International Intervention in Civil Conflict The
University of California Institute on Global
Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) and Stanford
University March 18, 2002 Sponsored by the
Carnegie Corporation of New York
2
Introduction

• The tragedy of September 11 has already led the
  United States into Afghanistan.
• We may see further interventions in unstable
  countries, which are hospitable to terrorist
  bases.
• As part of building the foundations for the
  control of terrorism, the United States seems
  likely to face questions about how best to
  re-establish political order.

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How Past Experience Might Inform Policy on
Afghanistan

• Three teams of scholars presented their
  assessments of third-party interventions in civil
  conflicts, including
• peacemaking
• peacekeeping
• transitional governments
• creating political order
• Their findings are presented here.

4
State-Building in the Aftermath of
War Barbara Walter UC San Diego
Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
5
Main Points

• Successful rebuilding requires a third party.
• Deployment, size, and timing are critical.
• The type of political system established
  duringthe transition has an enormous impact on
  success.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
6
First Pattern

• What we know about civil war transitions
• Combatants almost always failed to implement a
  treaty unless a third party enforced or verified
  demobilization.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
7
Signed Settlements and Their Method of
Resolution, 19401992
Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
8
Second Pattern

• Power-sharing pacts are also important.
• 55 percent of peace treaties that included
  guaranteed positions or a specific quota of power
  were successfully implemented.
• Treaties that didnt include such power-sharing
  were significantly less successful.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
9
Third Pattern

• The less inclusive a government, the more
  peacekeepers will be required for a successful
  transition to take place.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
10
Requirements for Re-building a State

• Fighting factions must demobilize, disengage, and
  dismantle separate militaries.
• Factions must also hand over occupied territory
  to a new central government that they wont
  necessarily control.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
11
Two Opportunities for Exploitation

• Demobilization makes groups vulnerable to
  surprise attack.
• It also makes it easy for rivals to seize control
  of the state and permanently exclude others from
  power.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
12
What This Means for Cooperation

• Combatants will anticipate problems of
  enforcement and shy away from cooperation unless
• They obtain a third-party security guarantee.
• They obtain a strict distribution of political
  power in the first post-war government.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
13
Lessons for Afghanistan

• Third-party enforcement or verification is
  necessary for success.
• The timing of intervention is very important.
  The current force must stay past June 2002.
• The current force is too small.
• Planned elections leave too much uncertainty.

Contact Prof. Barbara Walter Graduate School of
International Relations and Pacific
Studies University of California, San Diego 9500
Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
USA bfwalter_at_ucsd.edu
14

• The Power-Dividing
• Strategy
• Phil Roeder
• UC San Diego

Contact Prof. Phil Roeder Department of
Political Science University of California, San
Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
USA proeder_at_ucsd.edu
15
An Overview

• The Dilemma of Powersharing
• Long-term Dangers of Powersharing
• Policy Implications
• A Democratic Alternative Power-Dividing

Contact Prof. Phil Roeder Department of
Political Science University of California, San
Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
USA proeder_at_ucsd.edu
16
The Dilemma of Powersharing

• Initiation of peace (Short-term)
  versus
• Consolidation of peace (Long-term)

Contact Prof. Phil Roeder Department of
Political Science University of California, San
Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
USA proeder_at_ucsd.edu
17
Long-term Dangers of Powersharing

• Incentives to Escalate Ethnic Claims
• Incentives to Escalate Coercion
• Inter-ethnic Contagion

Contact Prof. Phil Roeder Department of
Political Science University of California, San
Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
USA proeder_at_ucsd.edu
18
Policy Implications

• Avoid premature intervention
• In the face of deadlock, partition
• Beware quick fixes to the dilemma
• Expand participation in negotiations
• Implement power-dividing

Contact Prof. Phil Roeder Department of
Political Science University of California, San
Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
USA proeder_at_ucsd.edu
19
A Democratic Alternative Power-Dividing

• Selectively limit government
• Leave divisive issues to society
• Give priority to individual rights, not ethnic
  group rights
• Institutionalize multiple majorities
• Separation of powers at the national level
• Multiple, overlapping subnational jurisdictions

Contact Prof. Phil Roeder Department of
Political Science University of California, San
Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093-0521
USA proeder_at_ucsd.edu
20

• What to Do About
• Collapsed States
• Lessons from UN
• Peacekeeping Operations in the 1990s
• James Fearon and David Laitin
• Stanford University

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
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Introduction

• September 11, 2001, and the ensuing war in
  Afghanistan have forced the Bush administration
  to consider nation building in a multilateral
  context
• What can be learned from 1990s UN peacekeeping
  operations (UNPKOs) in countries torn by civil
  war?
• Can these lessons be applied in Afghanistan?

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
22
Reforming UN Peacekeeping Operations

• Many UN missions failed dramatically in 1990s
• The Brahimi Report (August 2000) offers one set
  of solutions for reform
• Proposed solutions may be ineffectual because of
  underlying political pathologies

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
23
The Brahimi Reports Diagnosis

• Failure attributed to
• Lack of political will on part of member states
  and Security Council
• Commitment gap Security Council mandates
  exceeded resources
• Operational inefficiencies and lack of
  coordination

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
24
Proposed Remedies

• Security Council to write clear and achievable
  mandatesand back up with resources
• Secretary General must make scope of mission,
  including difficulties, clear from outset
• Robust rules of engagement for UN forces
  permission to fight back, stop violence against
  civilians, deter spoilers
• Reform Department of PKO and related UN
  departments
• Increase staff of DPKO and related departments

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
25
Causes of the Commitment Gap

• The Brahimi Report fails to deal with the
  underlying causes
• of the PKO commitment gap in the 1990s
• Political pathologies within UN
• SCSG Western nations pass buck to UN on
  humanitarian crises.Missions underfunded, UN
  blamed for failure
• SGSC Secretary General wants to get foot in
  the door in a particular crisis by underselling
  mission requirements
• Both pathologies led to mandates exceeding
  resources, especially in Rwanda, Somalia, and
  Bosnia

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
26
Mission Creep

• A political/military pathology that may
  generalize beyond the 1990s failures
• Expansion of a PKO beyond its initial mandate
• Practically inevitable in collapsed states
• Spoilers with guerilla warfare as option
  threaten unstable governments on paper
• UN or other international interveners cant
  appear to run mission escalates
• No clean exit long-term result an accumulation
  of protectorates, or neo-trusteeships, around
  the world

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
27
General Implications

• Present UN monitoring subject to logic of mission
  creep
• Cant fight spoilers without loss of mediating
  credibility
• Robust engagement will rarely be feasible
• Transitional administrations are a new form of
  trusteeship, without the safeguards of the old
  UN Trusteeship Council
• These need a more developed legal basis

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
28
UN Monitoring

• UN should subcontract security components to
  interested major powers in the troubled region
• UN should monitor in both traditional (chapter 6)
  senseand in newer sense of reporting on
  third-party interveners
• UN should specialize in institution-building
  assistance

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
29
Transitional Administrations

• Western nations and UN must face up to
  neo-trusteeship in form of transitional
  administrations
• Exit by slowly shifting financial burden to
  reconstructing state
• This strategy addresses fundamental problems of
  who pays and how to exit
• Provides strong incentive for new government to
  get up and running

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
30
Afghanistan

• The Bush administration has not come to grips
• with dynamics of mission creep in a collapsed
  state
• Choices
• Pull out, returning Afghanistan to pre-Taliban
  anarchy
• Ensure security
• This means substantial PK force commitment
• European nations wont jump in unless U.S.
  signals willingness

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu
31
A Commitment Gap on the Horizon?

• Current leadership temporary, held together by
  prospect of reconstruction aid
• Can a security welfare state, where major
  powers pay continually for war prevention, be
  avoided?
• One solution
• Afghani government pays for peacekeeping forces.
• Main players have veto power. All sides must buy
  intonew political arrangements.
• Strong have incentive to stabilize government,
  since not doing so pits them against
  international community.

Contact Prof. James Fearon Department of
Political Science Stanford University Stanford,
California, 94305-2044 USA jfearon_at_stanford.edu